Well Friday came, and it was time to go to the apartment we had decided on a few months earlier, and start to move stuff into the garage. I walked in the front door, with Melissa behind me and I heard uch, disgusting. (As a guy we do not see such things right away.)but Melissa did. The place was filthy, not dirty, but down right filthy. the floors were dirty and in the kitchen it was worse, dust ad cobwebs were everywhere. The cabinets were grimy and inside not cleaned out. The ref was covered in crap stuff inside and even the oven door was dirty. Upstairs the carpet was not cleaned and all the windows were dirty with flies and other dead bugs there. The bathroom was worse.

It as only 9:15 in the morning and it was clear we had a problem. Melissa was not even entertaining the fact of cleaning it herself. It took me some time to see all this, my mind was on the guy we rented from a childhood friend(NOW WHAT DO WE DO)I told him we would take it a while back. It was clear Melissa was not going to be happy here, even if it got all cleaned up and pretty. So we went home and I told Missy to call a few cleaning people and see what it might cost and also call her sister as she was coming over anyway and they both could go over and mull it over, with another apionion. In the meantime I left, I knew right away ,this is not the place. I drove about 10 miles away to a place we had looked at earlier, and thought I would get the numbers and call them. I happened to see an open house sign and jotted it down. When I got back I right away called and made an appointment for 3 pm to look. Then Melissa said her sister was coming over and that it would be about $300.00 or so to clean the apartment.

Once her sister showed up they left to go see, I had another number to call and did so and set up an appointment for Saturday. Both these places are for 55 and up active adults. Once they came back it was a done deal, we were not taking the place. Her sister left and Melissa called the landlord (as I did not have the guts) and told him the story, he was very upset. We went to the place at 3 and had a nice tour and it was WOW, for just a little more,we could have a real nice place. This place had it all. They did a background check and all was well and we said OK, we will decide Tomorrow. So Sat came and we went to the other place, turns out they are the same, he knew we had seen the other place and said here we offer just a little less in amenities as the other place. He showed us the first floor, two bedroom unit and it was a done deal ,we took it. Long story short, it started as a horrific day Friday and turned out to be a great day at the end. Fate , or what ever it was, was on our side that day.

Now for the moving in. As of today we have signed the lease and will move in by the 4th of Oct as the closing has been pushed back till the 6th or so.

Will update on that soon.

It’s here, moving time, seems like we just came back from our labor day vacation with the Rv, which we learned we are only about 1/3d ready to do. More on that later.

But now, IT’s Time to move. All the planning, worry, and endless time passing from the house being put up for sale and now, is OVER. Time to get a move on. Will be a big week coming up, with moving to the apartment and all the stuff going to the shed at Steve’s. Melissa is behind the times with all this, she has been busy working and her thoughts have been on that, but now we both have to concentrate on the move. We are ready, just have to do it. One odd thing though people have asked are you excited, happy and all that, and the real answer is NO, we have been to busy with everything else, and we still are IN the house, I hope once we are gone it will be a more happy, feeling settling in as this is what we have planned for. Will update when it is all over.

The open house went great ,about 25 different couples came through. Tuesday and Wednesday it was shown about 10 times, and once on Thursday. Had two offers on Friday. We took one of them ,and just like that it was over. The long awaited process was nothing more than a blink of the eye. We both felt like we were in a fog, “What is happening”. We did not have the emotion I thought we would have. It will most likely catch us soon. The home inspection went fine and they have applied for there mortgage, which should be fine. The closing is set for Sept 29th.

HOLY COW, now what, after years of thinking about it, the time is here. 27 years in the same place. I have been telling myself, for years, it’s time to go ,we have to get out of here or we will be dragged down by this place. Now that the time is almost upon us, it’s not a dream it is almost reality.

On another subject , our new 4 legged friend Cooper, is adjusting pretty well, he is a lot of fun to watch playing, but he is also a lot of work, ad has high energy, we try to walk him, most days, and we have been going to the Rv lately, where he can stretch his legs and get exercise. Tomorrow he goes the vet and gets his last shots, then I will be calling the day care place to get him in about 2 times a week. Hopefully that will burn a lot of energy and get him used to interacting with other dogs and humans.
We already have an apartment lined up for the winter, so our next big step, is preparing for that. For now that’s it.

It’s finally here. the house is now for sale, with an open house this Sunday. Both Melissa and I are excited, nervous, apprehensive, scared and happy all at the same time. The biggest part of our new exciting journey is now happening. It was a lot of work and a good amount of money to get to this point, but it should be worth it monetarily and in the big scope of things we are about to do.Will see how long it takes to sell, told it will go quick !!!. Not a lot of our kind of house for sale here in town, will see.

 

Have not been to the RV much, cause of all the last-minute prep work on the house, but Sunday during open house we will be there all day. Got some new stuff , like a big matt for outside and a few other things, so we will see how they work out. For now that’s it .

Mid July already, we have done a lot on the house situation getting it ready to sell. More stuff to be done than I would have thought. More on that later, right now we have a new addition  to our family.  We decided to get a puppy, a lot to handle with the house but decided this was the best time. We got a 10 week old whippet puppy from Georgia. He was flown in and we got him about 2 weeks ago. Both Melissa and I have forgotten how hard it was to raise a pup. So far he is a lot of work and constant watching, but it is going O.K. All the usual issues with puppies are arising, but hopefully in about a month he will be pretty much housebroke. He is adjusting pretty well, so that is good and he has tons of energy, so hopefully that will get me moving more.

 

The Rv, is a little on the back burner, we have only been there twice, staying over one night. To much going on , on the house.

 

The house, will be on the market the 31st of July. Have to do some minor work yet and then the interior gets painted. Once that is done they can have an open house and we will se. Right now it is a seller’s market so hopefully it will go fast.

Man, I keep saying it but time flies. We have been back from Sedona almost a month already. Sedona was wonderful, we did a lot, saw a lot and experienced a very different lifestyle, than that which we have in the north-east. I loved it there. Melissa broke her hand , though, on one of the hikes we took. By the end of June it should be healed. Lately we have had our garage sale, which we did good at, did not get rid of as many antiques as I would have thought. So we have to think about what we are going to do with some of it. We are also now trying!!! to get in high gear on cleaning the house and getting things sorted and put away. Our target date to list the house is for July 14th. We will see.

 

On the Rv front it came out of storage 3 weeks ago, and went right to the dealers, to have some warranty work done, along with a few other items I wanted them to do. We still do not have it. Hopefully this week-end and it will go to my brothers again. We have a lot to bring over to it and start to make it a home. For now that’s it.

Boy it’s been a while since I last blogged. A lot has happened. I had a realtor friend come over about six weeks ago to look at the house, and boy did she open my eyes. While she said she believes the house will sell fast there are a few big things we have to do.. Buyers today do not want carpet, they do not like wood nick nacks up, and they do not like much of anything hanging up on the walls.  So for the last little while we have been doing work that needs to be done and slowly taking things down and even throwing things away. We have a new floor in the entry way and old spa room, which does look nice. The bottom line she said your old life here has to go ,so that potential buyers see basically a staged house with very few things from our life in it. I guess I can see that, but we have a lot of work to do.

 

Nest week we are going to Sedona for a week of vacationing so that throws a little crimp in things and when we get back we are going to have a really big garage, moving sale for a few days. So for now that it.

Well another big step has happened. Last year it was the new Big Country 3450, and now Last week I finally retired from the job I had for 18 + years. It was bittersweet. I have known for a while it was time to move on. Haven’t been happy for a few years, and my work started to affect home life. My job was simple, as a building inspector for the town I live in, my job was to enforce the rules and regulations. Well too much outside influence started creeping in and it started to be a real hassle. Us late baby boomers do not like change and have a hard time listening to the younger , so called know it alls . So having to give 6 months notice, I thought was the hard part, boy was I wrong.  I trained a new guy for the last few months and all of a sudden it was here THE LAST DAY. They had a party for me at lunch, which was very special to me and after that I was out the door, just like that. Now with a few days behind me, my mind has been hit with this reality that , hay you can’t go back , you no longer have a job, your retired. But wait isn’t that what I wanted, to retire, the answer to that is a resounding YES.  So my mind has been a little conflicked, but it will pass and I will be better for it.

The bad part of it all is that I really am going to miss some of the people, it was like a second family to me, that is the hard part. As I have said before though , in order to move on in life you have to make hard decisions and this has been a big one. The path to full time Rving is getting closer and that is the main goal.

Next SELLING THE HOUSE oh boy!!!!

Wow it’s Feburary already. We had a good holidays and new years. Really antsy about getting back into the Rv, but winter hangs on long around here. Right now we are starting to think about things we need to fix and do to possibly get the house for sale, earliest would be May.

The other big thing going on is I only have 6 weeks of work left before I retire. I had to give 6 months notice and wow time is flying by. I am training a new guy and I feel he will be fine so that is a little relief, although with retiring should I even care, but I do.

We also got a neat Christmas present from Melissa’s sister, I guess it sums it up nice. Picture is below. For now that’s it

 

Well it’s the end of the year. A very good year in that we got the Rv this year, and kind of a bad year, in the way of a few health issues. Everything right now seems to be on an even keel, so that’s good.

We put up some Christmas decorations a few weeks ago, and we both said maybe this will be the last year we are in the house doing that, I hope so. Time has a way of getting by us, and the more you kind of stay stagnant the more likely you are of never taking the next step. Hopefully come January, we will be taking a giant leap forward toward our next journey.
Right now we are focused on enjoying the holidays with good friends and family and go from there. Otherwise not much else.

I did however find out a few weeks ago that when we ordered the Big Country 3450, that we were most likely having one of the last ones built. They no longer offer this model in the coming year. The new one is about 4′ longer and more money. We are very happy that we were able to get what we had been looking for this year.

WELL, HO, HO, HO AND MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR.